Today was PVL day. I have tried to find out what that stands for, but all of the entries I’ve found in Google are about some form of leukemia I hope I do not have, since I have had enough cancer without adding that to the ledger, or about a Filipino Volleyball League, and I know that I am not yet a member of that group (well, if I am a member, they haven’t played me yet).

It has to do with blood clots (not the volleyball league, but my version of PVL). It is sort of like a sonogram or ultrasound. It is, in fact, really rather pleasant.

When my family doc (who hasn’t been in this story for ages, has he, poor guy?) said I needed to get an updated PVL for my DVT I wanted to say FU, just to stay in the acronymial spirit, but instead I said to him, “If I get a male nurse, I will hunt you down.”

He looked at me to see if I was serious, and when he saw that I was, I’m sure he wrote some additional gibberish that only the medical professionals can decipher that said, “Make sure he gets a chick!”

Actually, knowing him, it was the exact opposite.

And he was foiled.

I strolled in this afternoon with my letter from the insurance company saying that I no longer have co-pay for stuff like this because I have paid through the wazoo (something that has not yet gone cancerous on me, wherever it is, and as far as I know), and she didn’t even want a copy like others, which probably means I WILL be paying through the wazoo at some point.

I settled down to an issue of The New Yorker from June of this year, wondering why it was in this waiting room in Virginia Beach where most of us could not care any less about who will be playing at Johnny’s Oyster Bar on Thursday night, particularly on a night that has long since passed, but I got by that and read an interesting article or two and then the lady came out and was smiling and cute and it was the same nurse I had LAST time. So I was smiling and cute too, all of a sudden.

She acted like she remembered me, probably because she had read my chart and seen her name in there and thought to herself, “Who is this guy?” and she said “Hello” and I said, with much more excitement, “Hello!” and then she said take off your pants and shoes just like last time, and I thought, damn, my wife never says that anymore and I should hang out at the hospital a lot more often than I do.

She said I should then get under the sheet.

I did all of that. Took off my shoes first, of course, since they were in the way of taking off my pants, and then I took off my pants, and I wondered, did she say to take off my socks too?

This is the sort of quandary you get into when you are focusing more on the visual than the aural, and I must admit that I was focusing more on her than on what she was saying, especially after she said to take off my pants. There is something about a woman saying to take off your pants that just sort of reroutes my synapses, and I cannot help it.

Especially if she is young and cute. As I mentioned to a friend, when you reach where I am at, being young MEANS being cute. But she was cute.

I decided, since she had left the room, that I would take matters into my own hands, or feet, as the case may be, and take off those socks as well. That is a good thing because one of them had a hole in the heel that I didn’t discover until I was putting them back on. As another friend said to me today, a lady friend by the way, women prepare much more thoroughly for these episodes than men do. She said, in fact, that she feels she needs a manicure to go to the dentist.

She said a lot of other things like that, and I replied, “Well, I’m going to take my monthly bath a week early.”

And I did! I went in there, at this frigid time of year and stripped down to nothing (before the hospital visit, of course) and was pretty pleased with the effort until I realized we had no soap, and I had no wash cloth. Only later would I find that I also had no towel. At the time, though, I went freezing out into the hallway to look for these important items and my son came into the hallway and immediately did a U-turn and asked what the hell I was doing (thinking, I guess, that I was just hanging out in the hall naked) and I told him and he said, “I’ll get the soap for you, dad.”, which is kind of him but also, wouldn’t you say, rather self-serving?

I never did get soap, although I got a washcloth. I bathed in shampoo, just like when I was single :).

I did forget to cologne certain strategic parts of my body and I also had to go back out into the hall for a towel, knowing that there were probably 3,000 full-bodied, completely washed, completely dried, towels out in the den, towels that I had washed, dried, and folded just that very morning. Luckily, there were a few in the closet in the hall as well.

Which means I wasn’t all that wet when I went to see my nurse/masseuse.

I took off my socks, and then worried only about my underwear. I wear boxers mostly, and they tend to let things fall through the crevices if you know what I mean and I think you do. And I am shy.

Fortunately, I was provided a sheet to dive beneath before she came back into the room.

Unfortunately, (or maybe really fortunately) as soon as she came in, she swiped half the sheet away and stuck a piece of it up into my underwear, to cover my crotch, apparently unaware, as I was too, until later, that a part of my, um crotch, was starting to hang out of those self-same undies.

And away we went!

We talked about our lives, what she had been doing since our time in Paris, what I was doing with the money I garnered when I won the Nobel Peace Prize, just those sorts of insignificant things from our past.

When we were done with the small talk, I asked her if she remembered me and she said she did and I said, no, you just read my chart, and she said, yes I did, but that brought you to mind and I did remember, and then she recited the events of our previous episode, so I pretended that she really remembered me because it made me feel significant, even more so than when I won that Nobel Peace Prize, which I didn’t really win in case someone wants to sue me for writing a blatantly false memoir, and then she got to work.

She rubbed the gel, a warm gel, along my leg, and I will not bother to describe it to you except to say that you would not mind the sensation at all.

I honestly asked her, with a preface that this was a sort of professional question, if she ever got anyone who was eroticized by this experience (luckily I was not, because there was absolutely no way to stop it under the circumstances), and she said, yeah, a few times, and I quickly rejoined, I’m not hitting on you, just asking questions! (and that is the beauty of saying you are writing a book: you can ask nearly anything).

And she said, yeah, now and then someone gets fresh with me (and I wanted to say, that is not exactly what I meant: what do you do when the rocket is preparing to launch, so to speak, but I didn’t) and I asked her what she did then, did she slap ’em or rebuke ’em or leave and she said, no, I try, as politely as possible, to shut them down.

I think she was, as politely as possible, shutting me down.

But I just wanted to know! Inquiring minds want to know!

So, they take this gel and put it on this little roll-on ball, and they run it from your ankle to your crotch. That is what they do. Even if you are a born-again Christian who doesn’t want to see the word crotch, I have to tell you, that is what they do, and there is no getting around it. It is not uncomfortable, but it is not so erotic either. Although it probably should be, erotic I mean.

She did both legs. No clots in the right leg (it was a minimal situation to begin with, but still, good news). Reduction, vast improvement, in left leg, with mostly just remnants of the original, but nothing below knee any more. I will probably have to stay on the Coumadin for a while, to take care of that last little bit, but things are looking good.

The alternative, down the road, would be to do minor surgery (unless it is me or you, of course, in which case it becomes major by default) to put a filter in femoral vein. Or two. That doesn’t sound pleasant to me, and I would like to avoid the hospital anyway, particularly the OR.

She is not supposed to tell me this, or so I gather. But she has done so both times, with the caveat that the radiologist will make the final analysis. I think she knows her stuff, frankly.

This is good news.

She slowly begins to…oh, wait, different site!

She slaps the sheet back on me and says I can get dressed and simply walk out of the building.

All of life should be so easy.

Oh, yeah, first the towel: I have to clean up after her. Do not take that the wrong way. I mean that I have to wipe up the gel, her gel, not mine, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

I was required, requested, ordered, whatever the proper word is, I am not sure: let us agree that I was invited back to the Advanced Imaging joint in the morning, as mentioned above, for a PVL. And because Mama Bear was there, I made it on time. I limped into the Advanced Imaging joint and gave them the paperwork from the night before and, as mentioned previously, knowing that my case was not serious, just knew that I would be there all day …in the waiting room.

Surprisingly, they called me back pretty quickly.

The nurse was young and blonde and pretty (I was in love.)

And I was getting the PVL, whatever that was. I knew that it meant they would be doing an ultrasound, but I did not realize that they, meaning my new love, would be doing my entire leg. And so I wore the black boxers with the little red devils on them with the red pitchforks and the repeated phrasing of “I’m a little Devil” in red all over the place. Hey! They brought me luck the last time I was in the hospital, when they were presented to me as a Valentine’s Day gift by my wife, and I thought they might do the same on this day.

Some of my sports upbringing, the superstitious part, I guess, remains intact.

She said I could get undressed, which surprised me, too, since I assumed they (meaning my new found love) would be looking just at the lower half of my leg, where the swelling and the pain were (insert Viagra jokes here, if you must, although it distracts from the narrative :)). But I am compliant when it comes to women telling me to undress, and that is what I did, although I must admit, I started to pull down the trou, (that’s cool talk for trousers … or used to be, hard for me to keep up :)) and when she didn’t leave the room, I hesitated, and this went on for a time or two, until she finally left, and I dropped trou and rolled my socks down (did take off shoes, but not shirt) and got into that everlasting fucking robe.

And jumped under the sheet, modest guy that I am when I am away from my computer.

Now, I submit that all of that is pretty strange, re the clothing and the modesty. No matter what cancer you are surviving, there is a good chance that before you are done with it, half of the population of your country is going to see you naked or talk about seeing you naked. It is a rule. Sort of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, you know, except it’s not his ass but yours?

Why the modesty, in other words, I do not know. Why the modesty, especially when some young lady is there and you should be proud of yourself, if you will. And I AM, trust me, I AM. (A little bit :)) But there it was.

Under the sheets, all alone, my wife out in the waiting room, apparently knowing more about this than I did, and not wanting to watch what happened next, or perhaps not allowed to? I hadn’t considered that before just now. Hmmm.

You see, my new love pulled the sheet away (and therefore saw my red devil undies, for starters, and then placed a towel gently over my genital area (I would like to say she had to call someone for a larger one, but no, the one she had, dish towel-sized, seemed to be adequate, alas!) and then she pushed it up to the very edge of my crotch and curled it underneath the edge of my underwear).

I was nervous at first, of course. I have never taken those enhancement sorts of drugs, for instance, and was not sure if I would be able to represent myself well, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, and I remain ambivalent, although leaning toward unfortunately as time goes by, she stopped at the crease of my leg and my crotch, and then started rubbing gel on me, from top of leg to bottom.

If I was not in love before, that indecision was behind me. Thankfully, not all love leads to immediate erotic displays. That’s all I have to say on the subject. Okay, this, too: once, I had to get massage therapy and, well, I was a bit overactive for that one, let’s just leave it at that.

My new love rolls some gel device down my leg and then starts at the top again (whew, I’m exhausted just thinking about it :)), and starts rolling a wand over the gel, occasionally pushing it inward, which is all good with me.

But when she is done, she says, “We have to take pictures now. Turns out you DO have a blood clot. So I have to do this again and take pictures. Shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes.”

She doesn’t seem as sexy any more :).

And you know how I am about time.

But I am not really worried about time at this point. I’m not. Really. I am worried about escaping through a window rather than going out and facing my wife who said I had a blood clot from 200 miles away. I am looking for avenues of escape, but keeping that thought to myself.

We repeat the procedure, and it goes a bit more slowly, and when she is done she says I have a big one, and normally, after what we have shared together, I would consider that a huge compliment, but I suspect she means something entirely different, and she does.

It seems the blood clot begins above my knee, in the thigh area, and then proceeds south past my knee to my calf.

Woohoo!

And she says, “Now we have to do the right leg.” And I ask why because there is nothing wrong over there as far as I can tell and I am wondering if she secretly really likes me, although, sigh, I secretly also know that I am full of it, and she says that it is just procedure, and she does that side, and I should really be enamored by now: more gel, more rubbing, the whole nine yards.

I tell her, in fact, “This is the most fun I’ve had in the last 10 years!” And she chuckles like someone who isn’t really laughing but just being polite, and I add, “But I’m sure you’ve heard that before,” hoping that she doesn’t say, “No, actually 10 years is a new record, you poor slob.”

She doesn’t. Whew!

Turns out I have an isolated smaller clot in the right leg too. Bummer.

Now, I advise her, seriously, I do, I advise her that I will need to escape through a window. She is perplexed (perhaps even afraid?) until I explain my wife’s prediction and how I can’t face it. And she says, well, we have to go back the way you came, because the order is for you to go back to the ER if anything comes back positive.

My life, as I have known it, as I have enjoyed it, is over. Not only am I now a grandfather (which is something I am looking forward to, to be honest, but a life change nonetheless), but I also have to live with a woman who was RIGHT. And not just right, but right in the face of defiance. I’m not sure it could get any worse than that. How could it?

But it does.

I find my wife in the lobby, rather than the waiting room, busily using her cell phone to keep track of the new life of her first grandson and of her daughter and son–in-law and son as well (son having been stuck in the house up in Vienna at some point, (Virginia, not Austria) choosing Wii game practice at the daughter’s house over more hospital crap, and who can blame him?).

I struggle with it, gnashing my teeth, but tell her that she was not only right, but that the clots were in both legs, and she harrumphs, but quietly, since we are in a public place, and I say we have to go back the ER, and we do, and I am thinking, Oh my GOD I will be in this place forever, and then, after checking in, surprisingly, they call me almost immediately, blood clots apparently high on the totem pole, the triage ladder, and I start heading back to the ER area, where the nurse meets me, and the nurse’s first response is “Are you supposed to be walking?”.

This threw me for a moment, as no one had mentioned it could be that serious. But I replied in the obvious: “I AM walking, that’s all I can tell you.” And she laughed and said, “Good answer. Follow me.” I was happy to do so, but this scene was already getting weird. I mean, should I be walking? What is that all about?

Meanwhile, in the background, I can hear “I TOLD YOU SO!” being shouted as clearly as I can hear any voice in the room, and yet, only two of us can hear it, amazingly enough. I choose not to look at my wife and her smug but worried face. I should add that it is not just smug and worried but angry, the anger smoldering well beneath smugness and worry, but there just the same. Just so you know. My time will come. I assure you. Can things get worse?

I suppose what I’m really trying to get at, once I get past the birth of my first grandson, is the question of how ANY of our loved ones deal with our shenanigans, particular the younger members or our clans, and not always the very youngest. Sometimes it is those who are on that fine line between understanding death and thinking that it will never happen to them (teenagers, I mean) who are most affected, I think.

Still, the application is valid for all. I DO wonder what that little guy will think, growing up with a grandpa who is different than other kids’ grandpas. (I can hear some of you saying already, “With or without cancer, HIS grandpa was gonna be different!”)

I’ve mentioned some of my son’s surprising revelations, and you know that my daughter and her husband ACTED as a result of my illness, albeit in a positive way.

People are transformed by cancer, I am trying to say, and it is not just those of us who are touched inside by the nasty critters. I know that that goes without saying, but I find it necessary to say, nonetheless, from time to time, just to remind myself.

Today, for example, I passed on my chemotherapy. My left leg is in some painful shape, and really, I mean this, I am not one to whine about pain normally. My doctors over time have made mention of my tolerance and my threshold and my attitude. I don’t really complain. Maybe about the food. About the seeming preponderance of male nurses these days. But not about pain.

This leg has been an issue for a couple of days, and I did mention it to my wife, Nurse Cratchett (:)) who was three and a half hours AWAY when I mentioned it and she came up with an instant diagnosis of a blood clot, how I do not know.

I tend to disregard diagnoses from 200 miles away, and therefore, I did the same with this one. And still I was not surprised when this particular nurse showed up at my home this evening to take me to the Emergency Room. True story. Apparently THIS woman has not heard about the price of gasoline or the Greening of America. Yes, she drives a Beetle, but still!

And so off to ER we went. We picked one not so crowded, so I only slept for an hour, I guess, before they wakened me, listened to my wife’s story (nurse that she is and thus one of them) and then to my story (nurse that I am not and thus quickly dismissed) and decided that she did indeed have very valid reasons for hiking my rear up to the ER.

But no proof.

They gave me a shot of Lovenox in the stomach (don’t you love the sound of that?) to get me through the night (and the funny thing is, as they testified, it will not dissolve any existing clots (the reason I thought I went to the ER) but will keep any new ones from forming (the reason I did not see any need to go to the ER, once this was mentioned).

And, by the way, is there anything more embarrassing than being in an Emergency Room when you truly believe you should not be there? Little kids walking by with an eyeball falling out; young man with bullet wound accompanied by policeman; guy still carrying the chainsaw that was a bad boy to him but at least thought well enough to retain some parts of his leg in its teeth. And here I am with, um, my wife thinks I may have a blood clot.

They stare at me. I add, she is a nurse! That sometimes gets me through. Other times they seem to think, oh, another nurse who wants to be a doctor. That is NOT helpful when I see that particular look. So I limp. A lot.

It also doesn’t help that, being a relatively honest and ethical guy, once we are in the room my wife says, “Lay it on thick!”. What??? Her idea is that I always sell my problems short. Her idea, too, is that in the ER, you have to really lather the bread with butter or they will not chew on it. Seriously!

So I am supposed to, not lie, but sell my story, I guess you could say. I thought I sold it when I CAME to the damned ER! I thought I sold it when I LIMPED to the damned ER from the car! I got nothing to sell! And I do not lie well.

As she knows. Oh, she knows.

I can’t get away with that stuff. So I just tell them the truth, and try to explain that I really don’t complain about pain, and this hurts, and when they leave, she says, you know, they hear that all the time, all men think they are tough when it comes to pain, and I say, but I AM, and she says, I know, but they don’t know that, and so when they come back in she says he REALLY is pain-tolerant (a lot of good that does), and I ask, how long is this going to take, which she doesn’t like (and I don’t think they do either, since my eyeball is not falling out and I am not a four year old chain saw accident victim that was shot by a policeman) and they say it will not take long now, and NOW is the word from Hell, because you know that their sense of NOW is not like YOUR sense of now, as you are speaking of NOW as if it meant today, tonight, right now, and they are speaking of NOW as if it meant when the paper work is done, sometime this week, when we get around to it, if we don’t forget you because you’ve been in there for so long.

Trouble. Real trouble if you are antsy. I do not recommend the ER for the antsy. But I have strayed again.

Shot in belly at 11:30PM and wife has nerve (:)) to point out that last night son-in-law slept while she fretted, and tonight hubby (me) slept while she fretted, and it wasn’t fair, and I replied that she worries to much, more to the point, that she over-reacts, which DID NOT sit well with her, and I would have added that she clearly needs more sleep, but thought better of it :), and shut my mouth at that point, except to complain that I should not have to be at the hospital at 7:15AM for a PVL or whatever they call it, even though I HAVE had it before and LIKE the jelly being spread on my body parts prior to the ultra-sound as long as it is a woman doing it, I’m just saying, not being sexist, just telling the truth, don’t like guys spreading jelly on my body parts, I don’t care where, I don’t care why, I don’t care who, but women can spread jelly on my body parts and I am perfectly happy with that as long as they do not have negative and positive battery cables in their opposing hands immediately after doing so.

Just saying.

I intend to sleep through the entire thing anyway, like a desperado waiting for a train. Hat tipped down to block out the sun, one eye open for danger (such as my wife with some NEW idea), one ear listening for that lonesome whistle.

Soon, I will have to explain women to my grandson. I want to beat my son-in-law to that, because he is apt to be too kind :).